


Like Glass

by entanglednow



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood, Dark, Disturbing Themes, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-01
Updated: 2010-03-01
Packaged: 2017-10-14 16:06:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam wakes up on the bathroom floor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Glass

Sam wakes up on the bathroom floor.

His face is pressed into the cold tiles and he feels like he's been given a massive electric shock. He's too hot and too tight, skin twitching, internal organs spasming while his head's buzzes insanely. His cheek is wet and he can smell copper, can feel the trail of liquid past his neck and that suggests it's blood from his ear rather than water. The rest - the memory of how, and why, is harder to catch hold of. He vaguely remembers-

 _-he remembers screaming, not caring how loud or how sharp he sounds, because it feels like someone's twisting his bones the wrong way-_

Sam twitches against the floor with sick little echoes of remembered pain. Someone shifts on the tiles behind him, a rustle of denim and the heavy slide of boots, telling him he's not alone.

He very carefully turns his head on the floor, fully expecting to find Dean. But that's not even close to who he finds in the bright unnatural light of the bathroom. He tries to drag in a breath but it feels like he's inhaling ice. The too sharp sawing edge of it at the back of his throat. His teeth feel loose and sensitive.

There's stillness, like the Trickster - no, not the Trickster - like _Gabriel,_ knows he's awake.

"Gabriel," Sam manages voice sluggish and gritty. The name's weird in his mouth, maybe because that's not the sort of tone he ever thought he'd be using with an archangel.

Someone-

 _-he remembers being spread face-down on an altar and pain in his back, like broken glass being shoved directly under the skin-_

He tries to move but Gabriel's grip is like iron, he grunts with the effort of it; then reluctantly gives in and relaxes, taking quick dizzy breaths.

"What's wrong with me?" That's not what he meant to say. He meant to say 'what did you do to me.' But everything hurts and he doesn't have the breath for more. Only half coherent, a strange mixture of too cold and too hot.

"You have a particularly nasty collection of symbols carved into your back," Gabriel's voice is quiet. "Which are currently trying to hollow you out and leave you an empty shell."

Sam breathes into the tiles. He can very faintly feel Gabriel touching him, as if from a long way away. His hands are freezing cold, or maybe Sam's back is on fire he can't tell for sure.

"Your brother's awake," Gabriel says flatly. Which, for a second, makes no sense to Sam, until Dean's boots slip into his vision, then gradually his knees and his face - he looks thin, brittle, worried as hell. Sam thinks maybe the expression he throws him is half confused and half accusing. Dean still reads him well enough to glare back.

"Don't look at me like that," Dean's voice is rough. "I don't like it any more than you do. But Cas couldn't do anything and you were screaming yourself bloody."

"It doesn't hurt that much any more," Sam says thinly. Completely ignoring the fact that he's afraid any movement at all will dislodge his skin from his skeleton.

Dean makes a rude noise and taps the floor. "That's because you're inside one hell of a protective circle," he says sharply.

Sam squints along the white tiles, sees the blur of red that travels round him. The heavy, wet smear of symbols he doesn't recognise.

"Whose blood is that?" he asks curiously.

"Mine," Gabriel grumbles behind him. "Stop fidgeting."

Sam wants to protest that he's not moving, but he thinks maybe that's not true. Because he can feel himself twitching faintly every time his attention drifts. He doesn't think he's doing it on purpose. Or maybe he is. There's a raw emptiness inside him and he wants nothing more than to get away from it. Dean finds his wrist on the floor, and his hands are cold, but nowhere near as cold as Gabriel's. He squeezes, like maybe he's afraid to touch anywhere else. Then he looks up, up and over Sam's head like he needs to see whatever Gabriel's doing, and judging by the clenching of his teeth and the swallow it's not pretty.

"Just do what Gabriel tells you," Dean says through his teeth, voice flat but fierce.

Which - yeah, Sam thinks he's in deep shit here, because he was pretty sure he'd absolutely never hear Dean say that. He makes a noise into the floor, something breathless and amused. Hysterical doom maybe.

"And that's officially the one and only time I'm going to say that," Dean says tightly.

Sam swallows carefully and tries to move his hand. But he thinks Gabriel's done something because it's not cooperating.

"What happened?"

Dean's eyes flick up to Gabriel and then back to him. "You got grabbed outside the motel, me and Cas figured they took you to the church. But we got there about ten minutes too late. You were already -" Dean stops and his expression is the hard, pale one he wears when he doesn't want to tell what he's seen.

"You were already on fire inside," Gabriel says calmly behind him.

Sam thinks maybe if he had control of his body he'd throw up.

Dean throws Gabriel a look, angry and hurt. But then his eyes drop, they look down along the length of Sam's back again. It's like he's looking at something terrible, he has to clear his throat and look away.

"If you're going to vomit on your brother I suggest you get out," Gabriel's voice is sharp and irritated.

Dean's leant too far away for Sam to see, all he's got to go on now are his boots, and far away near the door he catches the barest edge of Castiel's coat. Castiel, he thinks he remembers Castiel doing something, saying something. But that whole memory is almost completely overlaid by pain and the smell of burnt flesh - and then the edge of his coat is gone. Dean's boots shift and step back, sliding through the door before it closes behind them.

Sam turns his head again, just a little. Far enough to see Gabriel's knee, denim smeared red on his thigh, dark enough to have soaked all the way through. There's what looks like a hand print there too. Sam thinks the blood is probably his. Though he's fairly sure of one thing from that piece of information.

"Are you sitting on me?" he asks curiously.

Gabriel grunts. "Yes, and believe me, though you're not the first attractive body I've had spread underneath me you're officially the least fun."

Sam would roll his eyes at that if he wasn't afraid they might roll right out of their sockets.

"Why can't I feel what you're doing?" he asks sluggishly. Because he can feel the flare of his breath push back off the floor. He can feel the cold, and the scratch of his fingers on the tiles - just.

Gabriel makes a hard noise. "If you could feel what I was doing you'd be screaming," he says simply.

"That's really not comforting," Sam tells him.

"Forgive me for not livening the mood while I have my hands inside your back. I know I usually like a little hands-on mayhem but this is ridiculous."

"That sounds kind of gross," Sam decides, which is something of an understatement.

"There are a lot of places to hide things inside a human being," Gabriel tells him.

"Well, now I don't feel special at all," Sam manages which surprises Gabriel into laughter. He's sure he should be able to feel that somewhere against his back but there's nothing at all.

Sam thinks maybe he should ask why Gabriel is helping. When all he's ever done in the past is screw then over for his own amusement, or needs. When the last time they saw him he'd admitted that he was just waiting for someone to light the fuse and he didn't give a crap if they both burned up like kindling. But he doesn't.

"Thanks," Sam says instead, because he thinks he has to say something.

"You're not alive yet, Sam," Gabriel points out. Which strikes Sam as a really weird thing to say. But then something touches the back of his head and the world is just...

...gone.

  
~~~~~

  
Dean can't quite step away from the bathroom, hand still wrapped from the handle, still staring at the wood even though he can't see what's on the inside any more. Doesn't want to see, can't even look at that without -

There's a hand on his shoulder, careful but firm. It's not trying to pull him away. Dean almost feels like it's grounding him, or maybe attaching him to the implacable will of the angel in a way that should be wrong but manages to be the only solid ground sometimes.

"Gabriel is doing what he can," Castiel tells him and he sound certain. In that way he has where he can't believe anything else. Refuses to believe anything else.

"And you know that for sure, for certain." Dean's pushing but he can't help it, because, Jesus, he's seen the mess that used to be his brother and he's still far from fucking convinced that everything's going to be ok, even though he's spoken to him, touched his skin. And his skin had burned, Sam had been so freakin' hot Dean had nearly dragged his hand back straight away.

"I couldn't help Sam," Castiel admits and it's clear he feels a failure because of it. "Gabriel can. He could have let him die but he didn't."

"Doesn't mean he still won't," Dean says roughly, because he hasn't forgiven, or forgotten all the things Gabriel put them through.

"I don't believe Gabriel will stop while there is still something to save." Castiel's voice is soft. Like he's talking to a wild animal, like he thinks maybe Dean will burst through the door of the bathroom and try to drag Sam back all by himself. But they've already been there. Already done that. Learnt their damn lessons.

"Perhaps we all need to feel like we're saving something," Castiel says quietly.

"I think you're giving that bastard too much credit," Dean's voice comes out stiff. That lingering need to kick something threading through every word.

Castiel's fingers tighten, just a little. "I believe he'll do what he can."

"You find believing in things a hell of a lot easier than I do," Dean points out.

"I think perhaps you've both had more of an influence on Gabriel than you thought."

"Forgive me if I find that hard to believe."

"He came when we asked him to," Castiel points out simply. "You're both very easy to underestimate. Spending time around you is enlightening. It seems to encourage change."

"It's weird when you make that sound like a religious experience," Dean admits, though considering they're all pretty much bound for the apocalypse in one way or another it might as well be a religious experience.

Dean exhales and drops down onto the motel bed. He thinks maybe they could do with a good one of those for a change.

  
~~~~~

  
White, the floor is an endless expanse of white. Sam's confused for a long second and then he remembers. Gabriel. His hand twitches in front of his face. He watches it uncurl, stretch, touch the tiles. And then another smaller hand, fingers red and sticky wet, stills his own mid-stretch.

"Don't move," Gabriel says quietly and Sam exhales and obeys, remains very still for a long handful of seconds. He thinks he can...very faintly, feel the shift of jeans against his bare skin, the weight of Gabriel somewhere far away. He couldn't remember feeling that before. It's strange to find a sensation which you hadn't realised was there.

Gabriel shifts abruptly and his hand slides free. Sam feels the transference of weight, though he still can't feel anything in most of the rest of him. Like he's a collection of broken circuits. A collection of pieces that are no longer joined together. He scratches at the slippery floor with a hand. Sam's thirsty like burning but the idea of actually getting up enough to drink makes him feel strange and dizzy, so he rolls his head and lets his forehead soak up cold from the tiles instead.

"Life is going to be very unpleasant for you in a minute." Gabriel says slowly. "But I need to see what I'm carving out and for that I have to wake you up again."

"I'm already awake," Sam protests.

"Only a little bit, Sam," Gabriel corrects and he doesn't sound amused so it's probably bad.

"Being awake is good," Sam decides through his own hair.

Gabriel grunts like he disagrees. "Don't be so sure. Because when I do this you're going to hate me for it, even more than you do already."

Sam makes a noise which he's not sure means anything at all.

He's used to hating people he thinks.

"Yeah, do it."

Gabriel scoffs. "That's a very amusing streak of bravado you've got there and it's not going to help you a bit. We're not just talking about physical pain here. This isn't going to be like anything you've ever felt before."

Sam thinks if this is Gabriel telling him this then he has absolutely no reason to believe it. But he does anyway, for no reason he could name.

"What are you going to do?" Sam can't turn his head far enough to look but he feels Gabriel lean closer, the light overhead dimming a little as he sways into it.

"I'm going to make sure you don't die from it."

That's not reassuring at all. Sam flattens his hands on white tiles but there's nothing there to grab hold of, just slick cold stone.

"Take a breath," Gabriel says firmly.

Sam does as he's told and braces himself. It doesn’t help in the slightest.

His back is suddenly alive again. One great screaming mess of pain and fire like it's being sliced and burned and shredded all at the same time. He's not sure whether he wants to scream or throw up, or both. But he has no breath for either. He inhales so hard and so sharp it almost sounds like a scream, wretched, choking agony and his body tries to jerk away from it. Tries to turn itself inside out to get away from it. The breath comes out as a scream, then another because he can't move, can't do anything - can't even fucking bear it.

Gabriel flattens him to the floor in a way he shouldn't be able to, holds him there with weight and pressure and the faraway hum of his voice. But it's all too much, too much and Sam feels like he's burning alive, like he's eating himself from the inside out -

  
~~~~~

  
Sam's not sure if he's conscious or not. Everything is very cold, including the fingers that rest somewhere on his arm. He swallows and his mouth tastes like electricity and blood. His body tries desperately to twitch, as if it remembers what was happening before he blacked out. Like it remembers being nothing but nerve endings and horror.

"Gabriel?" it's mangled but coherent, just.

"No, it's me." Dean shifts into view, boots squeaking when they shift and bring him down almost to Sam's level. "How you feeling?" Sam can't see his face from this angle, just the edge of his jaw and the endless green folds of his shirt.

Sam thinks about it for a minute.

"Like I had all my bones taken out." He remembers screaming, he remembers screaming a lot. He wonders if Dean heard him. Wonders how he possibly _couldn't_ have done. Dean's legs fold, bringing himself down to a sit and Sam can see his face now. Can see the dark circles under his eyes. His brother's shitty at taking care of himself. He's always been better at dealing with other people's crap.

"Am I fixed?" Sam asks. There's a flinch, Dean's mouth goes tight at the edges, eyes sliding away.

That's a bad facial expression, a really bad one. He knows his brother well enough to know that. They've made that face at other people far too many times.

"I'm not fixed," Sam says flatly. He turns his head slowly. He gets it round far enough to realise someone has put a sheet over him before Dean has a hand on his shoulder, making him lay down again.

"Hey, you don't want to see that, Sam, trust me."

Sam grits him teeth, because he's fairly sure nothing could be worse than just not letting him see for himself - in not telling him anything.

"Dean," he insists. Because everyone seems to know what's going on here except for him. And judging by the way everyone's walking around not saying anything and looking at each other like this whole thing is hopeless - Sam wants to demand, he wants to demand Dean tell him right now what's happening to him. God, he wants to but he's exhausted and he feels like he could fall apart without even trying. It's too much effort to try and move.

"Just stay still, ok." Dean's voice is so tense it's almost angry. Like he's been told not to let Sam move. Not to let him look at himself. Not to do anything. Dean's fingers squeeze somewhere on his shoulder. It's one hard dig of sensation that manages to bite its way through the numbness. Like maybe he thinks he can hold Sam together himself.

  
~~~~~

  
The next time Sam opens his eyes Dean's gone. It feels like he only closed them for a second. But time has clearly leaked away while he wasn't looking. It's not a feeling he enjoys. Someone's shifting behind him, shifting on him. A weight that's become strangely familiar. The wet sound that comes with it is equally familiar. But not comforting at all.

"What's wrong with me, the magic, what is it?" he asks quietly. Because if Dean won't tell him he's fairly sure Gabriel will. Gabriel seems like the type to tell people messy truths. When there's no game to be played. Gabriel stops moving, touches part of his shoulder that still has nerves in it. His fingers are wet.

"Think of it as a disease of the soul. It's eaten away most of the soft tissue and left the important parts infected. It's a nasty, ruthless little bastard that knows how to hide inside you, knows how to burrow its way into every single part of you."

It sounds horrible.

Gabriel grunts agreement.

"They've left you something of a mess and I'm trying to find all your pieces before they end up something you wouldn't want back."

Sam would shudder if he could. "Why would demons - I mean I thought Lucifer wanted me?" There's the spatter of something hitting the floor, some part of him, Sam thinks.

"Not everyone wants the apocalypse," Gabriel says tightly. "Some of them aren't ready to let go of what they've managed to claw out for themselves. Taking you out of the picture, that's a pretty damn big spanner in the works."

Sam sighs gently onto the floor. He's not sure he likes the idea of being a spanner, or maybe in this scenario he's the machinery. Maybe he's just a part that keeps sticking.

"Is there anyone who isn't trying to kill me?" Sam asks, watches his hair drift about with the question.

"I don't think it's a very long list," Gabriel points out honestly. "Whether you die or say yes, it's probably not ending well for you."

It's a reminder Sam doesn't really want, doesn't need.

"So why are you bothering to fix me?"

"Maybe I just want to see if I can," Gabriel's says, voice some tangled up mixture of irritation and arrogance. "Or maybe it was a slow Wednesday and I had nothing better to do."

Sam's fairly sure Gabriel's been finding better things to do for a very long time. He thinks he'd probably gotten pretty good at it.

  
~~~~~

  
Sam's hair is in his face, pretty much all of it. He tries to roll his head back so it'll slide off but he's at the wrong angle now and it just swings. He just makes it worse. Which is just the sort of ludicrous crap that happens to him on a daily basis. Why should the fact that he's naked and being eaten out from the inside make today any different. He's pretty much decided he's going to have to put up with it there forever, or until he's too far gone to care, when there's the faint touch of fingers against his forehead. They draw his hair back to rest against the floor. Oh yeah, he's officially pathetic.

"Thanks," he manages.

"You suffocating, really not the point," Gabriel reminds him. "Also, your hair is ridiculous." Gabriel's weight shifts its way back to where it was originally.

"You're short," Sam protests. Because he suspects a lifetime with Dean has made him far too used to flinging insults back without thinking about them. Not always a good survival instinct, considering. But Gabriel seems amused where he's perched on whichever parts of Sam aren't broken.

"I'm roughly seventy thousand times the size of you, Sam."

Sam has a moment of genuine surprise.

"Really?"

"Uh huh."

Sam frowns at nothing at all. "How do you fit in a room?"

Gabriel makes an untidy snorting noise. "We fold up in ways you can't," he says helpfully, quietly. A little sliver of honesty that sounds strangely genuine.

Like an accordion, Sam thinks, without really meaning to. Because that's a stupid comparison. But now Gabriel's laughing behind him, soft, easy laughter that's oddly human. Like Sam's done something funny. Or _thought_ something funny.

"Are you reading my mind?"

Gabriel taps gently at his skin with two fingers.

"It's kind of hard not to at the moment."

"Huh?" Sam asks messily.

"I'm making sure it stays your own in there, no unwelcome guests, no burrowing insects, no parasitical magical soul eating diseases." Gabriel's fingers lift off his skin for a brief instant, like he's making some sort of gesture Sam can't see.

"Ok," Sam says faintly. Because he figures that's probably a good thing.

"You're surprisingly blasé about the invasion of privacy, Sam?"

"It's not like you couldn't read my mind all the time if you wanted to anyway. I figure if Castiel can then you definitely can."

"Castiel reads your minds?"

"No," Sam offers and there's an irritated confused poke somewhere near the base of his spine.

"Either he does, or he doesn't?" Gabriel says tightly. Like he really wants to know.

"Castiel tries not to do it," Sam tells him lazily, his voice is half muffled by the floor but he figures Gabriel can hear him anyway. He's tired and it's a lot of effort to talk.

"That's stupidly reckless of him, considering Dean's history of bad ideas. You'd think a little poking around in his horrifying mind would solve the problem."

"Cas wouldn’t do that," Sam tries to shake his head but his head won't obey.

"Because he's worried Dean would pull out the overplayed 'you don't trust me and I can't trust you' card again?"

Sam sighs into the tiles. >"No, because he loves him," he says sensibly and Gabriel stops moving completely just before the world melts away.

  
~~~~~

  
"So whose bright idea was it to go back to the church anyway?" Gabriel asks. It's a hard cut of words like he wants something to bite into. Or something to distract him away from whatever he's doing. Sam's starting to think maybe Dean was right. Maybe he doesn't want details about what his back looks like.

Sam stares at his own arm from far too close. "I don't remember," he admits. Because he can't. Not a thing. The whole day before he ended up...like this. It's all a jumbled blur of motel room and car and the steady drone of Dean's voice. Though the words have all gone. "I don't really remember what happened at all."

"Judging by Dean's hideous and perfectly in character angsting it was probably _his_ plan. Castiel has been trying to convince him he hasn't gotten you killed again. That's not exactly off the table yet though."

"It's not his fault," Sam says flatly. It comes out sounding rehearsed. He's said it so many times he doesn’t even have to think about it any more.

Gabriel makes a noise, something tight and unimpressed like he knows as much.

"Blame him anyway, he'll blame himself enough for both of you. Dean's taken on so much responsibility I'm sometimes amazed he can still _breathe_ on his own."

"We're still here," Sam reminds him. Because he can't protest that description of Dean, can't protest and can't admit to it. He can't admit how much it's true. Not to Gabriel.

"Barely," Gabriel points out.

Because Sam's the one on the floor being pieced together by an Archangel that should hate them.

"Castiel's on our side," Sam says slowly. "That's something."

"Castiel's a blind idiot. Dean doesn’t need to be worshipped. That's the absolute last thing he needs right now. Another person to disappoint, to let down when it counts. You're both protesting so damn hard that you don't want this but that doesn’t stop you stumbling blindly straight off that damn cliff. No matter how many signposts tell you about the sheer fucking drop."

Gabriel's voice is angry but there's more than a hint of tired frustration there. Soft and honest enough that Sam doesn't comment on it.

"If you really are serious about flipping off heaven and hell and going your own way then you might want to stop dancing to their tune," he adds.

"We're trying," Sam says, cheek cool against the tiles, teeth aching. "We've been trying."

"No, you're doing the same things you've always done, just like they want. And Castiel's too close to you to see it any more."

That hurts, it really does. Because Sam knows that's what Dean's afraid of, more than anything. Is dragging Castiel down with them. Of all the sacrifices he's made for them, for Dean, being for nothing. Of Dean not managing all the things he promised.

"Castiel's one of the good guys," Sam says quietly. Because that counts for something.

Gabriel doesn't agree but then he doesn't protest either.

There's a strange itching sensation deep inside his back, like something is shifting.

"Do you have your hand inside me?"

"Might want to not think about that," Gabriel says slowly. "Or possibly phrase it a different way when you mention it to your brother."

Sam makes an unhappy noise.

"No innuendo when I'm naked and paralysed, it's creepy."

Gabriel snorts laughter.

"I hate to break it to you Sam, but this is an angle you're never going to be hot from. Not for me at least."

"S'comforting thought," Sam manages. His voice sounds strange and drugged.

"Don't go to sleep," Gabriel says firmly, all trace of joking gone from his voice.

"M'tired," Sam protests. "Really tired."

"Checking out on your body is not a good idea at the moment, Sam."

Sam makes a miserable noise.

"Sam, if you fall asleep you'll come back wrong," Gabriel says quietly.

Sam rolls his head on the tiles and even that much effort hurts.

"I can't - can't help it, God, just want to shut my eyes."

Gabriel leans forward, lays his hand on the back of his neck.

"You can't sleep, Sam, I'm sorry."

Everything's suddenly raw and too bright and he can feel far too much of what Gabriel's doing. Until he's running cold sweat and feeling his throat constrict and then spasm around something that wants to be a retch. But he doesn't have anything to bring up.

He hates every second of it.

  
~~~~~

  
Gabriel lets him sleep eventually.

He wakes up at some point absolutely certain that he's falling.

He's not, he's still stretched out on the bathroom floor. But he doesn't stop feeling that strange and horrible weightlessness and there's nothing close enough to grab on to.

He makes some sort of sound because a leg slides into his vision, untidy crumples of denim and Dean's boot.

"Sam?"

Sam finds him at a weird angle. It should have hurt his neck but he can't feel much of anything.

He says the first thing that comes into his head.

"You look like shit."

Dean pulls a face at him.

"Dude, you are by far winning in the 'looking like shit' stakes." Sam can tell there's genuine pain under there but there's not a lot he can do. Protesting that he feels fine is probably going to fool no one at this point.

"Feel like I'm falling," he says instead. Which is still honest but less raw.

Dean reaches a hand out and curls it round his shoulder.

"Better?" he asks.

It's not. It just feels like he's taking Dean with him now, like they're both slipping through the floor.

"Yeah, thanks," he says. Because he knows well enough that in situations like this all you want to do is help, somehow.

Dean grunts and tightens his fingers.

"How long have I been here?" Sam asks quietly. Because he realises he doesn’t know. That he has no idea how much time's passed. How long he's been laid out on the bathroom floor like some complicated science project.

"Four days," Dean's voice is flat. "Maybe, I don't know, something like that."

Sam stares up at him because it hadn't felt that long.

"Has Cas threatened to put you to sleep yet?"

Dean scowls at him. "He threatened."

"You should let him."

"What the hell am I going to do while I sleep?"

"I get the feeling there's not a lot you can do now," Sam points out. He has to roll his head away, has to cool his cheek and breathe the cold of the floor.

Dean shifts so Sam can still see him.

"I'm not happy about Gabriel being here, Sam. But, Cas honestly believes he can help you."

"I think he's trying," Sam tells him.

Dean swallows and shakes his head.

"I've seen what he's been doing to you. I've heard you. It's like -" Dean's eyes flick up to where Sam's back is still exposed to the cool air of the bathroom. "I can't watch that. It's too close -"

"You don't have to," Sam tells him. Because he doesn’t want to make him finish. Doesn't want to make him remember. "I know you and Cas are out there. I know you're not going anywhere. Not until -" Sam's not sure how to finish that. Not until he's dead, or maybe not until he's fixed. He has a nasty feeling the first is more likely.

Dean's silent for a long stretch.

Sam wonders if they're going to have that conversation again. The conversation they always have. Where Sam tries to make him promise that if he goes he won't try and find a way to get him back. Where Dean resists, resists until Sam doesn’t have any breath left. Before finally promising, all knife edges of hurt, that he won't.

And they'll both know it's a lie.

Until Sam realises that they don't need to have that conversation any more.

That they've had it already in the silence.

No matter how broken they get they can never quite make that line break. It hurts, it hurts like fucking madness. But Sam can't make himself let go of it either.

"Where's Gabriel?"

Dean stretches a leg out, hand shifting on Sam's shoulder.

"Talking to Cas, weird angel things, I can't understand a freakin' word of it. Fairly sure they're talking about you though." He shakes his head. "Whatever it is, Cas isn't happy."

"Maybe they want to put my brain in a robot body?"

Dean pulls a face at him.

"Dude, your skirt has blown up and your geek panties are showing."

"Better geek panties than no panties at all," Sam says faintly and Dean laughs like he wasn't expecting it.

It's easy after that.

Dean stops looking like he expects Sam to bleed out right there and Sam eventually feels warm enough that the constant threat of sliding through the floor becomes something he can shove into the background and not think about.

Eventually, the tight grip of Dean's hand makes it stop altogether

  
~~~~~

  
It's dark the next time he finds himself staring out at nothing.

He can feel Gabriel though.

"Am I dying?" he asks sluggishly, once he's certain he can speak.

"Yes," Gabriel says without hesitation. "But then you've been dying since Dean brought you back from the church. All I've been doing is kicking death in the shins every time he comes to collect you."

"What, literally?" The idea is more amusing than it should be.

Gabriel huffs messy laughter, like he knows Sam's joking.

"Because, that's definitely something I can imagine you doing," Sam adds.

"There's reckless and then there's _stupid_ , Sam. Though you clearly have a higher opinion of me than your brother."

Sam hears his boots thud and then squeak on the floor. Gabriel's lower down now, balanced on his thighs maybe. Sam thinks maybe whatever's wrong with his back there's more of it than there used to be.

Or maybe less of him.

"We tend to judge people on what they do. Not who they are or what they were. And to be fair you were -" Sam thinks it's probably impolite to point out that he was kind of an asshole while he's trying to jigsaw puzzle him back together.

Gabriel makes an amused noise.

"Technically you already did, and I've been called worse, Sam. Much, much worse." He doesn't sound like he minds.

"You made me watch Dean die, so many times," Sam says flatly. "I hated you for that."

"I've been hated too. For a lot longer than you've been alive."

Sam blinks and wonders what expression the angel's wearing now. If he still looks like the Trickster or whether he has new faces now they know what he is.

"You don't care?"

Gabriel's fingers are still on his skin.

"I don't care anymore."

Which Sam thinks is a big difference. "How did you manage that?"

"Let's just say I embraced the title of 'pagan god' a little too enthusiastically."

Gabriel's moving, knees sliding on the tiles, making room and Sam feels them against the half-awake length of his side, a curl of sensation where he doesn't remember feeling anything before.

"Sometimes I enjoyed things I shouldn't have done," Gabriel admits quietly and Sam knows he never meant to say that. That it creeps out on the end of a thought. "I got tired of people not listening, not caring. Sometimes you have to make the lessons stick."

"You always knew who deserved it?" Sam asks quietly.

"Yes," Gabriel says and he sounds more than sure of that.

There's a tone in it Sam's familiar with though. Something underneath.

Sam's fairly sure Gabriel doesn't think he deserves to go back.

That he doesn't deserve to be what he was.

The Archangel Gabriel.

"Gabriel -"

Gabriel leans forward, hand on the floor. He crushes Sam silent with his own body weight, like he doesn’t want to hear any more. Like he doesn't want to admit any more.

"Breathe, Sam," he says simply.

Gabriel's hand is pressed flat on the tile, fingers and knuckles streaked red. Sam doesn't even think about it, he uncurls a hand, finds the angel's wrist.

He squeezes like his life depends on it -

Everything after that is just pain.

...

Sam wakes up completely numb. He's dizzy like he's been spinning round and round. Though he can't really feel the rest of his body so he thinks it's almost certainly all in his head.

He opens his eyes and he's getting pretty damn sick of looking at the bathroom floor. Even if it is pretty much the first thing that tells him whether he's alive or not.

Gabriel's palm is no longer flat on the floor. Their fingers are tangled together now, Sam's spotted and smeared red where Gabriel's are laced through them.

He's not sure how exactly that happened but suspects it was probably him. There's something animal about pain that makes you reach out. Something that makes you need at the same time as you're trying to shred yourself inside out to be alone with it.

He wonders if an angel has ever felt like that.

Gabriel's the one who draws his hand free, slowly separating their fingers and slipping away.

Sam stares at his red hand and feels an odd sense of loss.

  
~~~~~

  
"Sam." Gabriel voice is quiet, taut. It's too dark and too cold and Sam's still sparking with the last horrible echoes of pain but he knows Gabriel wants to bring his nerves back to life again. He wants to put Sam back in that place

Sam's still cold from the last time. Not entirely back all the way. It's too soon. It's too soon and he doesn’t have enough breath left to scream again.

"Gabriel," Sam says thinly. "Don't - please, I don't think I'll come back."

Gabriel's hand is warm on the curve of his waist, it tightens just a little, one solid thrum of sensation where everything is coldness and discomfort.

"If I don't do this you won't come back at all," Gabriel's heavier than he's ever been, leaning all his weight down on Sam and he thinks that's going to hurt when he can feel again and Sam takes a breath and another before he goes under.

It's started to feel like drowning.

  
~~~~~

  
Sam's freezing cold.

He can't feel himself and he's too exhausted to shake. It's like his body's given up already, decided to just fade into the cold of the floor.

He tries to open his eyes and it feels like it takes forever. The room is dark. He can just see the floor in front of his face. The bathroom door isn't entirely shut and there's a sliver of light coming through it.

There's a low strange buzzing noise which he thinks might be coming from inside his own head. Discordant and jumbled up. The sort of noise that you don't notice until it drives you mad. He's alone, but he doesn't think he could move if he tried. He feels like he weighs several messy tons. Or like he's pinned to the ground with invisible stakes. He breathes, quietly and tries anyway, tries to make his fingers move, tries to stretch them out. But there's nothing, nothing at all. It's like he doesn’t work any more. Like he's a puppet that's had all its strings cut. It's a horrible image for a moment that he can't shake.

He should be worried, he should be terrified.

He tries to lick his lips but it's too much effort. His jaw won't work yet, it won't open.

He stops trying and breathes into the floor.

It takes him a second to work out that the buzzing isn't buzzing at all, it's voices. He can hear the jumble of three voices outside. They're too far away, too low to catch it all. But he knows exactly who's talking. Dean, Castiel and Gabriel.

 _" - when there's nothing inside, it's just..........nothing......."_ Gabriel sounds irritated, like he's explaining something he's already explained too many times.

 _"Then fix it."_ Dean's voice is all demand.

 _"What exactly do you think I've been trying to do?"_

" _Gabriel_ ," Castiel's low unexpected tones are harder to make out. They're soft and they vibrate, gone too quickly to catch. _"Do you...........we don't know.......broken?"_

 _"........tied to something which isn't dying."_ Gabriel's voice is sharp.

 _"Me,"_ Dean says immediately.

Sam rolls his head on the floor, faint movement that wants to be a refusal because _Jesus_ they both just have to stop. To just stop. They can't keep doing this.

But Gabriel's laughing

 _"You think............swallow you both whole."_

Sam swallows, swallows again and rolls his head, tries to find a position where the cold of the floor and the thrum of his own blood isn't cutting out the voices on the other side of the door.

They're low and fierce now. Murmurs that he can't catch. A frustrating insect low thrum of sound. He can hear Dean's desperation. Voice pitched somewhere between Castiel and Gabriel.

Bargaining for him, again.

Sam's too far away to tell him no.

 _"You'll owe me, that isn't the sort of thing you do for free."_ Gabriel again. _"That's more than blood.........."_

There's a pause and Sam breathes out and strains to catch whatever Dean says.

But there's nothing.

 _"Dean,"_ Castiel's voice is low with warning. Like Dean's just agreed to something stupid and reckless.

 _"No, Cas."_

Castiel is silent.

Gabriel's laughing, and it's not a nice laugh.

 _"Oh, your brother's not going to thank you for this."_

What did you do? Sam thinks desperately. God damn it, Dean, what did you do?

He lays there in the dark for what feels like forever. Though he doesn't get any colder, he's not sure he can any more. Like he's reached absolute zero. Like he's a focal point for all the cold in the room.

He barely registers the way the light turns from a crack into a wide stream, then a flare of brilliance, before there are boots in his vision.

"Whatever Dean told you to do," Sam says shakily. "Don't, he's done too many stupid things for me. Just let the damn thing eat me."

Gabriel sinks until Sam can see his face and for once has no expression on it at all. It's all angles and strange darkness. It's the flat blankness of an angel. Which isn't as comforting as it should have been.

"And I thought you were both learning," Gabriel says quietly, like he's disappointed, but not surprised. "Sadly, this time it won't be Dean doing the stupid things. Though if he realised exactly what he was stubbornly demanding he probably wouldn't have been so quick to agree to it."

Gabriel comes closer and Sam can see a long strip of dark material hanging from his left hand.

"What are you going to do?"

Gabriel snorts.

"You are smarter than your brother, since that's more than he asked and he's still all in this world."

Gabriel tilts his head to the side.

"I'm going to make you into something this thing can't swallow."

Sam eyes the material where it trails on the floor.

"What's that for?"

"A safety precaution," Gabriel says simply. "Let's just say we're going to be winging it."

There's a brief huff of laughter at the joke. Though there's something darker underneath. Something that says maybe this isn't as easy as Gabriel's making it sound.

Sam rolls his eyes higher, trying to get a better look at Gabriel's face.

"That sounds -"

"You're way past the sensible ideas now, Sam," Gabriel says quietly. "I bring you back kicking and screaming the hard way or not at all."

Sam raises an eyebrow.

Gabriel tips his head to the side, then shakes it slightly. Like he's just thought something ridiculous.

"I need your consent, I can't - won't do this without it."

Sam doesn’t have the nerves left to react to that, but he draws his mouth as tight as he can.

"You're not going to -"

"I'm not going to use you as a vessel, Sam. I need your consent though. It's not the sort of thing you can do without it. Even me, and you'd be amazed at some of the terrible things I've done."

Sam licks his lips but there's no moisture there at all.

"Dean -"

"Your blockheaded brother asked for this, even though he didn't know exactly what it was."

The way he says it, slow and sharp. It makes Sam blink and search for more words, careful words.

"What's the catch?" he asks, because there's always a catch.

Gabriel's mouth slides up at the edge, like Sam's done something smart.

"Me," he says simply. "I'm going to be the thing tying you to this terribly unfair world that's constantly trying to kill you."

It's not so hard to work out what that means, even with a head full of cotton, even half dead.

"You'll own me?"

"No, I won't own you. But it isn't exactly going to be an equal partnership." It's a warning, and Sam thinks that he could have lied. He could have said no.

Sam thinks maybe he's losing the ability to think. Words drifting in and out like waves.

"Is it safe - for you I mean?"

Gabriel looks at him and for the life of him Sam can't read a single emotion in his expression. Until it's pasted over with something loose and easy and perfectly human. Amusement and mockery.

"Sam Winchester, I'm touched. Safe for me, sure, safe for you, not so much." Gabriel flicks at a curl of hair that's fallen in Sam's eye. "There are only so many times I can put you back together. Like a vase that's broken too often you'll start to lose pieces. You'll end up with holes that nasty things can get in and not all the glue in the world will fix you then."

Sam looks up at him, because it's clear Gabriel isn't finished.

"You don't have to say yes. You can say no and it all ends here, you check out, I leave. Your brother - well we all know what he's going to do. But it won't help. You're being devoured and you won't be anywhere to be brought back. That's the point of the magic. It's like a singularity that's dragging in everything that makes up Sam Winchester. This thing's gruesome and relentless in its one single purpose."

Sam swallows.

"So, what do you say, Sam?"

If it's a choice between death and this, then Sam chooses this.

"I say yes."

~~~~~

  
The world is heavy.

Sam can feel it crushing him, beating him into the floor with a steady, fierce pressure. It feels like suffocating.

Because it is, he realises abruptly that he needs to breathe. He takes a great solid breath, fills his lungs. Then lets it shudder out again. He's still on the floor, still laid out on the white tile, staring across it. Only the red curve of angel blood is gone, the solid symbols are gone. The floor underneath him in completely clean.

His whole body tingles, like it knows a storm is coming. But there's something else strange, something - he realises he's not cold any more. He's not exactly warm, which makes sense since he's sprawled out naked on a bathroom floor. But he doesn't feel like he's been frozen and hollowed out any more.

He twitches and then goes very still - because his whole body just moved. He can feel his whole body, every inch of himself, from the tingling edges of his hair to the press of his own toes into the tiles. He moves them cautiously and then exhales shaky relief when they obediently move weakly on the floor.

The space where his hipbone curves inward is strangely sore, hot and unpleasant like he's been laying on something too warm.

"Welcome back."

The pressure in the middle of his back is suddenly gone. Sam hadn't even realised it was there until he feels the slide of fingers leaving the skin.

He swallows, swallows again and feels it all the way down. A slow flex of muscle that feels tender and new.

"Gabriel?"

"You're all in one piece again, Sam," Gabriel says. Voice somewhere behind him.

Sam isn't sure if he quite believes it. He feels...he doesn’t want to say 'delicate' because that sounds kind of pathetic.

"Do you want to try and get up?" Gabriel offers.

Sam's skin tightens at the thought, insane as that seems, because that sounds _terrifying_. Spending six days feeling like you're not even attached to all the parts of you will do that. He's tempted to ask if he can get up.

But saying no isn't even an option.

"Yes."

Gabriel grunts like he's an idiot, but that he expected it anyway.

"There won't be a test afterwards, Sam. If you want to wait until you feel like you're wearing your own skin again no one's going to mark you down or scrawl 'must try harder' in the margins."

"I still want to try," Sam insists.

"Of course you do," Gabriel says and Sam can hear his rolling his eyes. He slides closer and folds a hand round Sam's arm.

Sam feels brand new when he cautiously pushes himself up on his hands, staring at the floor from what feels like a million miles away. Though he's been walking his whole life there's part of him that still thinks it's impossible. That he's not going to get there, that he's too stiff, still too recently broken.

And then Gabriel has an arm round his waist and he thinks maybe he can manage the whole walking thing after all. Because the angel is crazy-strong, more than strong enough to not let Sam fall on his face. He gets his knees under him, and his feet follow from there like they remember how. Even if he doesn't.

The floor's warm where he's been laying and perfectly clean. All the blood is gone, though Sam's fairly sure a considerable amount of it was his.

He resists, just a little, when Gabriel pulls.

"Sam?"

"Where's the blood?"

"Gone," Gabriel says simply. "Come on."

The angel's fingers curl at his waist, warm and familiar in a way that surprises him. Sam's still shifting his weight, one hand caught in the back of Gabriel's shirt the other on his shoulder. He keeps moving until he's standing. Until he's standing on his own feet in the middle of the bathroom. He takes a breath because it feels like a long time since he's been like this, since he's been him.

His own reflection in the mirror draws his attention, he sees himself, sees -

The curling, flared burn of the handprint that's now on his left hip. That's definitely new, it's large, red and angry and that explains the warmth, the strange edge of pain.

"What -" he lifts a hand to touch it and Gabriel stops him.

"You might want to leave that for a while, it's fairly new."

"You touched me without - without your body, right?"

Gabriel raises an eyebrow at the phrasing, but then shrugs.

"Kind of hard to do what I just did without it."

Sam stares at it and breathes.

"Thank you," he says quietly. "For bringing me back."

Gabriel's still looking at the mark his own fingers left. But he raises his eyes to meet Sam's in the mirror eventually. Sets his mouth in something lazy and amused.

"I'm sure you'll have an opportunity to regret it later," he says smoothly.

Sam's almost tempted to try and touch again. Because it's something like a brand, and he should be horrified that Gabriel has effectively burned himself into Sam's skin.

But he's strangely fine with it. It wouldn’t be the first time fate had conspired to make him and Dean match.

He laughs, loose and probably inappropriate. Though Gabriel's shaking his head at him like he's ridiculous.

He doesn't touch, but he doesn't stop looking either.

"That's why you made me wear the blindfold."

"I figured if you did come back you'd want eyes," Gabriel says sensibly.

"Eyes are good," Sam agrees and takes another step towards the mirror.

Something else occurs to him.

"I'm naked."

"You've been naked for almost a week," Gabriel points out. Like Sam might have brain damage.

"Somehow, now I'm not dying, it seems more important." Sam mostly tells his own naked reflection.

"Typical, now you're finally in a state where I can actually appreciate it," Gabriel complains.

Sam ignores him and eyes the shower, trying to decide if he's any sort of state to try and have one.

He decides that the alternative is unacceptable. He still feels like he's spent a week on the bathroom floor.

Gabriel makes himself comfortable next to the sink and waves his arms in a 'have at it' sort of way. One that seems to think Sam's going to end up on his ass.

The water's warm, which is a sensation that reminds him - unpleasantly - of the bodily fluids he's been leaking. But then it's much warmer, a shiver of impossible heat wherever it falls and Sam's hair is immediately plastered to his face when he leans into it, head tipped down, breathing like he needs it.

"So, this thing," he says through the water. "What exactly does it mean for me?"

There's a squeak, like Gabriel’s moving his boots on the floor.

"It doesn’t have to mean anything. Think of it like an arranged marriage. It doesn’t really mean anything unless you consummate it and move in together."

Sam tips his head out of the water and peers through his soaking hair at where Gabriel's leant against the wall.

"Can we not use that comparison when Dean's listening?"

"But it makes Dean happy when he gets to mock you. I thought we were all about making Dean happy?"

"You've never been about making Dean happy," Sam objects.

He doesn't catch Gabriel's visual response to that, he's too busy being blinded by shampoo.

"Castiel wasn't happy about it was he?" Sam asks, because though all he'd heard was his low disapproving tone he thinks he knows the angel well enough to know when he's insisting something won't end well.

"Castiel's old fashioned, he probably thinks I should have asked your dad permission first."

"That's really not funny," Sam tells him through a stream of water.

He shakes his hair clean and eyeballs Gabriel from under the wet mess of it.

"Castiel worries about us, he carved sigils into us, so the other angels couldn't find us."

Gabriel looks away, briefly, as if he's thinking about his answer.

"I'm tied all the way round your bones Sam, the sigils mean nothing," he says quietly.

Sam wonders if that's why Castiel was so resistant.

"So, you'll always know where I am?"

"Afraid so," Gabriel says lazily. "It's a bitch being hauled back from the abyss, eh?"

Sam stares at the wall and thinks about that.

"Could you make me do things, I mean - things I didn't want to do?" He doesn't realise how much the thought disturbs him until it's out there. Until he's waiting for the answer.

Gabriel's quiet for long enough that Sam turns round in the spray.

The angel shakes his head, once, quickly.

"I can feel you, I can find you, I can do other weird angel things to you if I want to. But I can't control you."

He looks tense now, uncomfortable.

Sam's not entirely sure he's telling the truth. He doesn’t know whether to press him on it. So he doesn't.

"Weird angel things?" he asks instead.

Gabriel smiles, one of those lazy, smug smiles that tells Sam he's not getting an answer to that question. It occurs to him that he may have actually signed over his soul to the biggest practical joker on the planet. One who just happens to have phenomenal cosmic powers.

When he steps out Gabriel throws him a towel and he rocks on his feet for a moment and wonders if he's actually going to fall down before he decides no because it's a _towel._

There are clothes now balanced on the edge of the sink.

"So, do I have to be careful. I mean, I feel ok, a bit like I've had the flu but generally ok. Am I going to break again if I push too hard?"

"You won't break, Sam. I guarantee it."

"Now I'm held together with angel glue?"

"Did you just compare me to glue?" Gabriel says slowly with his head tipped to the side.

"No," Sam insists with something that wants to be a smile. "I was just wondering how exactly I'm...different."

Gabriel stares at him for a long time, watches him rub his hair dry with a strange sort of focus.

"I've tied you to me permanently, Sam. Angel or pagan that's pretty heavy stuff."

"So, what's in it for you?" Sam asks, suddenly serious, suddenly curious. Though it's a little late to be asking.

"Bragging rights," Gabriel says with a smile, gives a quick dirty flick of his eyebrows.

Sam decides that if Gabriel's going slide back behind jokes then he can too.

"I should get superpowers out of it at the very least," he complains.

Gabriel rolls his eyes.

"Like you haven't learnt the dangers of superpowers already?"

Sam can't argue with that.

"Can I read your mind too?" he asks, only half joking. He's honestly curious if this goes both ways.

Gabriel raises an eyebrow.

"I should hope not. Because if you could process it, even accidentally, your head would probably catch on fire and explode."

Sam frowns.

"You don't mean that literally?"

"It's more of a visual aid to remind you not to do it."

"As visual aids go it's a good one," Sam agrees.

Gabriel grunts like he's amused but trying to be a sensible adult.

Sam has to wonder what the hell brought that on.

"Put some clothes on, Sam, you're giving me ideas."

Sam huffs and reaches out for the stack of clothes.

"These aren't mine."

"They're close enough," Gabriel tells him.

Sam goes set the clothes down and finds himself with no balance at all - and then there's a hand catching his own in mid-air, drawing him back into steadiness, fingers pulling and Sam tightens his own and holds on for a second.

Until he's straight again.

"Thanks."

Gabriel looks at their hands, something like genuine surprise in his face.

Sam feels the almost considering press of his fingers.

Before Gabriel abruptly lets go.

"You're all fixed now though, try and stay that way."

Sam reads the meaning under the sentence.

"You're leaving?"

"I'm a busy demi-god Sam, I can't be swanning around saving people from death without letting the day job slide."

"What if I need you?"

Gabriel looks at him and Sam wonders if he could have phrased that better. 'What if I have a problem?' maybe. Or 'What if something goes wrong?'

"Call me, I'll hear you, and I'll know where you are," Gabriel says finally. Then exhales, messily, like he thinks Sam's going to be terrible trouble.

Dean's probably not going to like that. Because even Castiel can't find them without calling and checking first and they trust Castiel.

He's still trying to think of something else to say when Gabriel just disappears on a low tear of sound.

Sam stares at the empty space for a long minute. Until the cold air makes his skin shudder. He reaches out for his clothes, pulls them on in slow careful movements. The slide of denim over the hot skin of his hip is a sliver of pain. Nothing like what he'd been through for the last few days, nothing even close to that bad. But it makes him still, strangely uncertain. Because, other than that he doesn't feel any different.

He pulls his shirt on, pushes wet hair off his face and stares at himself in the mirror. He feels like he's all there. All the pieces that make up him present and correct.

Which means in some way that he trusts Gabriel. Trusts him in a way he never thought he would. In a way Gabriel hadn't ever deserved. probably still doesn't deserve.

He thinks he should be surprised.

But there's just relief, and something else, something he can't quite name.

He grasps the door handle and opens the door for the first time in six days.

Dean's sat on the bed, arms hung down over his knees.

He still looks like crap. Sam doubts he's slept in a week.

When he sees Sam standing in the bathroom doorway he exhales, so hard it sounds like a punch. He's up and across the carpet and Sam ends up with Dean's arm slung round his back, solid chest pressed into his own. He's caught up in a half-hug that slips into a full one when Dean relaxes and presses the palm of his hand into Sam's back.

"It's good to see you upright," Dean says, voice hard and full.

"It's good to be upright," Sam agrees and tries his best to crush the life out of him. Just to prove that he can.

Dean grunts and crushes him right back. In his own special 'I was going easy on you since you were so recently dead but hell if we're playing that game,' way.

It's good, it's more than good.

And then Dean levers him out to arms length. Stares at him seriously.

"How you feeling, you ok now?"

"I'm ok," Sam tells him, and he thinks maybe he's telling himself too.

Dean smacks him on the shoulder, then squeezes like he wants to make absolutely sure Sam's in one piece now.

"Don't get me wrong. I'm not happy about owing Gabriel of all people. But I'm not going to bitch about it -"

Sam raises an eyebrow.

Dean pulls a face.

"Ok, I'll bitch about it. But just this once I'll let it pass."

Dean's hand slips free, then hovers like it kind of wants to reach up and squeeze him again. He seems to force himself to let it drop.

"Dude, you want food. I think I owe you that much at least."

Sam thinks about it and realises that maybe he is hungry after all. Which might have something to do with the fact that he hasn't eaten for a week.

"I could eat," he admits.

"I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna get you something, what do you want, Sam? Whatever you want, come on."

Sam throws his arms out.

"To be honest I've only just noticed that I'm hungry. I haven't really thought about it."

"That's not a problem, I can bring you back something, something awesome. Cas, will keep you company while I'm gone won't you, Cas?"

Sam translates that perfectly as 'keep an eye on you,' and he thinks Castiel knows as much too.

But the angel nods slowly.

Dean barely even stops for his coat.

Sam has a sneaking suspicions he's going to come back with some of everything.

Dean has a predictable reaction to near death experiences.

He looks at Castiel when the door thumps shut.

"He has a lot of adrenaline to work off, yeah?"

"He refused to leave while your fate was still uncertain," Castiel agrees.

Sam knows Dean's going to drive too fast and on far too little sleep but he's fairly sure the only other option for him is to stay here and pace and go mad. Checking on Sam every five minutes to make sure he hasn't passed out, or died when he wasn't looking.

Sam kind of feels sorry for Castiel. Who's had to put up with this while he's been in the bathroom playing chicken with death.

"How are you feeling, Sam?" Castiel asks, and there's a genuine half smile there, like Castiel is happy to see him upright again.

It surprises him, but it makes him happy too.

"I feel better, I feel a lot better," he says honestly.

"And Gabriel?"

Sam's not exactly sure what he's asking. If Castiel wants to know if Gabriel is alright, or where he is now.

"He left just before I came out."

"He intends to come back," Castiel says and it doesn’t sound like a question.

"I don't know," Sam answers honestly.

Castiel's brows draw in slightly. In what might be surprise, or confusion, or some complicated angel emotion that's neither.

"Do you believe Gabriel will be able to stay away from you now, knowing his fascination with you both in the past?"

"I wouldn't call it fascination," Sam says easily. Though he's not entirely sure that's true. There'd always been something before they knew what he was, and after that, after they knew he had his own agenda there was still something sharp, something interested. "But he's an angel, and we don't exactly have a good track record getting their support - no offence."

Castiel nods like he doesn't take any.

"I mean he's got his own agenda, they've all got their own agenda. Even when they help us." Sam thinks it will come out sounding bitter but there's more of a confused sort of loss there. Like he's not sure of anything anymore.

"I don't believe he is much of an angel as he was," Castiel says gently, eyes looking away and down. Like it hurts him to say. Like it hurts him to admit it.

"He knows that," Sam says quietly and there's something softly surprised from Castiel.

He's looking straight at him again.

"He told you that?" he asks curiously.

Sam shrugs.

"He didn't say much. But I think he knows how deep he went. I think he knows he got lost."

Castiel stares at him, head tipped curiously, as if he's trying to see into him. Sam wouldn’t be surprised if he could. Though he isn't sure what he'll see if he does. If what Gabriel did to him is visible in some sort of angel way. Which just brings up more questions, more problems. But at least he's around to ask them.

"Sam," Castiel's voice is low but insistent. "Don't do anything you don't want to do, and don't allow Gabriel to manipulate you. He's more than capable."

He sounds genuinely concerned and Sam's not sure whether to be reassured or irritated.

"I know and I won't, Cas, I know I can still say no."

Sam's more than aware he can still say no. That he would still say no, even if the whole world assured him that he couldn't. And not just because he's a Winchester. Sam's never been fond of doing what he's told.

"Gabriel can be persuasive, especially now," Castiel adds.

"Especially now?"

"Now you owe him your life." Castiel looks guilty. Like he feels somehow that it's his fault. That he wasn’t strong enough to bring Sam back himself.

Sam shakes his head.

"I'm not going to feel obligated to do anything for him."

Castiel has no reaction, which manages to feel like he's making a point anyway.

"I'm not going to feel obligated to do anything _stupid_ that he wants me to do," Sam clarifies.

"He will have an influence on you," Castiel says. "You may not realise it but he will. He's inside you now."

Sam swallows and very carefully pushes down the strange reaction to that. The familiarity of it. Like the reassurance when he comes back breathing through so much pain it threatens to send him blind.

"Like you're inside Dean?" Sam points out. God, he doesn't mean to make it sound accusing. But sometimes Dean can be so blind.

Castiel is human enough to look away.

"I let Dean take what he needs, I never try and influence him." His voice is firm. Like he feels that what he's saying is right in some way.

Sam thinks that's a different influence all together. But he isn't sure how to tell him as much.

"More importantly I am not an Archangel. Gabriel will not be content to sit and watch you Sam."

"I'm fairly sure he has better things to do. Maybe he'll just leave me hanging until he feels like coming back to remind me that he owns me."

"Is that what he told you?" Castiel says stiffly. He looks angry for the first time.

Sam sighs and shakes his head.

"No, I think I was more assuming that was how it would go."

Castiel comes closer, coat brushing the edges of Sam's shirt. He's so damn earnest when he looks up. Like he wants Sam to understand

"It's not ownership, Sam, and it's not just a convenient way to bring you all the way back from death. It's a promise."

"A promise?"

"To protect you," Castiel says. "To help you, to know when you need him, to not leave you on your own."

Sam feels pretty damn on his own at the minute. It's not like Gabriel stayed long after putting him back together again.

Castiel seems to read something in his face. Something that softens his expression.

"It's deeper than you understand. In a way that was never meant, never designed to be about what he wants. Perhaps he doesn't trust himself not to abuse it," Castiel says. In that careful way he has when he's trying to think the best of people.

The mark on his hip burns accusingly when Sam sits down on the bed.

"Gabriel's never struck me as the sort of person to restrain himself."

Castiel makes a face at him. One that suggests he's not getting something important.

  
~~~~~

That night Sam sleeps like the dead

~~~~~

  
Dean brings him coffee in the morning.

He wakes up confused, breathing into the strange softness of the pillow to the smell of it steaming somewhere not too far away.

Sam suspects this is one of those rare and magical things that he's not allowed to comment on, or everyone will turn back into pumpkins. He drinks it while Dean tries to coax Castiel into trying one of the tasty pastries he's managed to bring back too. He's not having much luck so far. Sam decides he's going to shower rather than risk watching the angel's resistance crumble. Because he always feels sorry for him when Dean manages to lure him into something he's not sure about.

His clothes are still where he left them, stuffed haphazardly into his bag, all save the ones he was wearing when he got cut open by dark magic.

He takes whatever comes to hand first and heads back to the bathroom. He pushes open the door and flicks on the light. It's white and blank and strangely empty. The soft echoes from his bare feet quiet and low.

He stares at the floor for a long time. That wide, bright space where he was spread out, spread open. Before walking through it, making the water as hot as he can stand and stripping his clothes off piece by piece.

The mark on his hip stings under the flow of water. A steady flare of sensation that leaves him leaning against the wall and wondering if it's going to feel like this every time. This slow, raw ache that's nothing like the hollow cold he went through on the floor.

He almost hopes it does. He leans it into the water, let's it fall and run round the curve of his hip while he drags shampoo through his hair and breathes with his head tipped down under the spray.

He ends up half hard in his hand, the slow squeeze and slide of his fingers more instinct than design. But it still leaves him pressing his free hand into the wet tiles, leaning into it and digging his fingers there when the pace goes from lazy to sharp and hungry.

Every inch of his skin is warm and tight, and he feels it all the way through him when he comes. He's left gasping and leaning his forehead into the wall, shivering and touching where he's never needed to touch before.

He thinks of nothing at all.

  
~~~~~

  
"You ok?"

Sam looks up from the paper he's reading. From the paper he's been flicking his way through, pen still held between his teeth because he'd been too distracted to catch and ring anything suspicious.

"What?"

Dean's eyes flick from the empty road to him again.

"You, dude, you're pretty distracted."

Sam frowns.

"No - I mean, yeah. I'm ok, I guess, I'm just still a little out of it maybe." Sam shrugs.

Dean frowns at him, dividing his attention between Sam and the road like he's not entirely sure whether to believe him or not.

"If you're not up to a hunt we can wait a few days."

Sam swivels the paper he'd been writing on earlier round.

"I don't think Carla and Michael Wade and their poltergeist can wait a few days."

Dean gives one quick head-shake.

"If you're not a hundred percent -"

"Dean, I'm fine," Sam protests. He drags the pen out of his mouth. "Really, just - it's a little weird still."

"Weird how?" Dean demands.

Sam sighs, because he'd thrown that word out with no real idea of how to explain what was weird or why. It was just...weird. Like he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like he'd forgotten something. Like he'd left something behind. Or maybe like he'd picked up something that didn't belong to him. Something someone would make him give back.

"Just weird, I'm shaking it off, it's just taking me a while is all."

  
~~~~~

  
He's fine when Dean asks later, when they're set up in a new room, pizza box flung between them on the table, paper and cracked pens tossed haphazardly there too.

He looks over the computer and insists, again, that he's good. That he's himself. He's just distracted, he's just focused.

He's fine when Castiel asks when they meet him at an abandoned hospital two days later.

He continues to be fine through the whole hunt. Even when he gets tossed onto a stack of beds by an angry dead orderly.

He's fine three hundred miles later when Dean asks again.

Sam's so fine he could scream

  
~~~~~

  
The bed's too soft.

It's the third room they've stayed at in almost a week and they're all the same. They're all too soft and too warm, the jumbled mess of it under his skin and his face. Sam's head aches, body still and uncomfortable. He's been sleeping on adrenaline fall for days, recharging from his messy trip down the rabbit hole. But tonight he's just not tired and every dip and curve of the mattress and scrape of the cheap scratchy sheets is trying to drive him mad.

Dean's asleep across the room, buried in his own arm, making low breath sounds like he's all the way down. Like he won't be up again 'til morning no matter what tears through the room.

Sam hasn't known him to sleep like that for months.

He sighs and stares at the ceiling, then slithers over, buries his face in the pillow. It's as useless as any other position.

The fleeting mental image of going to lie on the bathroom floor makes him smile in the darkness. Because he doesn't think a week is long enough to develop some sort of messed up attachment to cold floors.

Though he's fairly sure it isn't the cold floor he wants.

He stares at his arm, at the pattern of hair that lays there.

Until the bed dips, one slow shift of weight on the mattress.

Sam's instincts are good, as good as Dean's, but he doesn't go for the knife under the pillow. He doesn't throw an arm out and try for the gun on the nightstand.

Because he already knows who it is.

Gabriel's weight settles on his back, denim against the bare edges of his hips where his shorts have ridden down. After a pause his hands are lazy warmth on his skin.

Sam finally feels like he can breathe again.

"Is it messed up that this is the first time I've felt right in more than a week?" he murmurs.

Gabriel makes a noise that sounds like it agrees.

Sam risks a glance at the other bed. But Dean's still pressed into the crook of his own elbow and Sam knows he won't wake up unless Gabriel wants him to.

He should be mad about that and he is, a little. But it's not the fierce anger it should be. It's not the sharp mistrust that it would have been before.

Gabriel's touch is slower, less intent than Sam's used to. But then it would be.

"Nothing to fix now," Sam says carefully.

"I like you better like this," Gabriel admits into the silence. His hands flatten on Sam's back, fingers on skin and he can feel it all, a push of sensation and strength.

"I thought you'd be back sooner," Sam says quietly. He tries like hell not to make it sound like there's a 'why' there.

Gabriel's fingers curl, just briefly.

"You're not supposed to want this, Sam. You're not supposed to hold on so tightly."

Sam frowns, because he hasn't been trying. He's been trying to be normal, trying to _feel_ normal.

"I'm not," he says. There's been nothing to hold on to since Gabriel left. Just that strange emptiness that he hasn't known what to do with.

"You are," Gabriel says quietly. "You've dug your fingers in so hard I can feel you every time I breathe, and I don't even need to breathe."

Sam inhales, holds it til it hurts and then lets it free.

He slithers round, slithers over and Gabriel lets him, sliding up on his knees until Sam's settled again. Until Gabriel is a warm, heavy weight in his lap.

That should have felt threatening. It should have felt wrong in almost every way.

But it's like they've lost any concept of personal space. Like it just doesn't matter anymore.

Sam thinks Gabriel spent so long grounding him that he's left adrift without the weight of him. The bite of his fingers and the sharp sting of his voice.

Or maybe it's more than that.

Because the way his hands twitch against the bed, like they want to slide up and catch Gabriel's waist. The way they want to hold him there. Sam doesn't think that has anything to do with comfort, nothing at all to do with being grounded.

Maybe it's just an animal need to touch. Maybe that's the difference.

Or maybe it's because he wants and he's not used to trusting any need that strong.

Sam shakes the thought away.

"You stayed away. Castiel said you wouldn’t be able to help yourself."

"Maybe I have better self-control than my brother thinks," Gabriel says with a raised eyebrow. Like the thought of Castiel knowing anything about him amuses and irritates him at the same time.

Sam frowns up at him, trying to read something, trying to read _anything_ on Gabriel's face. Because he's the one angel that gives when it comes to expression. Too much to follow sometimes. All slices of emotion, not always pretty, almost never kind. But they're there, so many of them.

Maybe that's the problem though. There's too much there, and Gabriel knows how to use it all.

"I was trying," Gabriel says eventually. "To stay away."

"Why?"

There's a slow blink, Gabriel's arms are folded now. As if he's refusing to touch now that Sam's turned over, refusing to slide his hands across his chest and stomach and the warm curve of his hip on one side.

"Because I'm greedy and vicious and broken and cruel," Gabriel murmurs in the darkness, all breath and warmth. "And sometimes I like it."

Sam thinks that's more of a confession than he intends.

"I like girls," Sam says quietly.

Gabriel snorts at that. Like the randomness of it doesn't surprise him at all.

"How nice for you."

"I meant only girls," Sam explains. "Only ever girls." Because the darkness seems a good time for confessions and he thinks it's the first time he's admitted it to himself as well. The first time he's voiced this thing out loud.

His hands open, slide from Gabriel's knees to his thighs, fingers digging into the muscle there, like he's curious and he doesn’t need to say anything else.

"You know technically I'm neither," Gabriel reminds him quietly.

Sam shakes his head, because it's a protest that doesn't matter, not here, not now.

Gabriel's teeth flash, brief and sharp above him.

"Maybe I put you back wrong."

Sam thinks about saying that maybe he put a little too much of himself in when he pieced him back together. But he thinks that will be the wrong thing to say. In a way he can't quite define.

"You're supposed to protect me," Sam says quietly instead

Gabriel goes very still, then makes a low hissing noise.

"Castiel," he says simply. "What's my brother been telling you?"

"Nothing, almost nothing. I think he's waiting for you to tell me yourself."

"That's my brother," Gabriel says, throaty and amused. "Always expecting the good in people."

Sam digs his fingers into Gabriel's knees.

"Kind of makes you want to live up to it, eh?" he offers.

Gabriel glares down at him.

"No," he says flatly. But Sam can tell that's a lie. Even if he's not entirely sure how.

"If you didn't want to -"

Gabriel doesn’t let him finish.

"It's safer for you if you say no." The angel's voice is deep and impossible. "I've forgotten how to be an angel."

"This thing, do you have to be an angel for it to work?" Sam asks curiously.

"I think you have to be an angel for it to be fair," Gabriel says flatly. "For it not to be _wrong._ " There are edges there, uncertain, like he doesn’t know. Like he's never tried before.

"Life isn't always fair," Sam admits.

Gabriel makes a noise, low in his throat like Sam's making it easy. Like he's making it simple.

"I'm terrifying and I'm not kind, Samuel Winchester."

Sam knows how true that is, he's seen it.

But maybe he can feel Gabriel's edges now, sharp and cold and half lost. Just like he was, spread out and bleeding on the cold of a floor hundreds of miles away. He doesn’t think he can piece Gabriel together. But maybe he can convince the angel to do it himself.

"Maybe I don't want kind."

"You don't know what you want," Gabriel says quietly. But he doesn’t move away. He leans closer, one of his hands sliding up and digging into the weight of Sam's hair, like he wants to pull. Like he wants to slide in close. But he doesn't.

Sam catches the stillness of Gabriel's wrist. He finds his hand and drags it down, all the way down until it's over the stinging, warm edge of the mark he made with his own hand. Fingers pressed and held there.

Gabriel's breath stutters in his throat. Breath he doesn't even need.

"You have no idea what you're playing with, Sam." His voice has gone to pieces.

"If you weren't prepared for the consequences you shouldn't have done it," Sam says, soft and quiet and if there's an edge of humour there it's pretty much to hide the too-quick rush of blood that's drowning out everything else. He thinks he more than wants this. He thinks he already has it, this vicious, impossible thing that Gabriel is holding on to so tightly.

"Tell me you don't want me," Sam demands

"I don't need to want you, you're mine," Gabriel says simply.

Half of Sam wants to protest at that. To insist that he doesn’t belong to anyone. That he refuses to ever belong to anyone. But he can't, can't because his fingers are clawing at the smooth edge of Gabriel's shirt. His thighs tighten and relax where Gabriel's are thrown over them. He's so far into arousal that every twitch and shift that Gabriel makes feels like a tease.

"It's not meant to be like this," Gabriel says quietly. "It's not meant to be -"

"Sexual?" Sam says quietly.

Gabriel's inhale is quick and soft. His eyes are furiously dark.

Sam's hands are sliding again, pressing into every muscle he finds, straying higher, where Gabriel's thighs meet his hips.

"Maybe it's not an angel thing after all," Sam says slowly. "Maybe it's not as pure as Castiel likes to think. Maybe we're all different types of animal."

"You think all angels are animals, Sam? Or just me?"

"I think you threatened to tear death's throat out for me," Sam says quietly.

Gabriel goes still and Sam can hear the jerky thud of his own pulse. The shiver of his own breath that sounds rough and hungry.

"And if I do something stupid I think you'll bite me and put me in my place," he adds.

Gabriel's exhale comes out rough and ragged. Sam's not the only one who's aroused now.

"Don't tempt me, Sam," Gabriel says thickly.

Sam's hands are high enough to catch Gabriel's hips, fingers biting in tight.

"When you had me spread out on the bathroom floor did you think about it?" he asks quietly.

Gabriel makes a low purring sound that Sam doesn’t think he intends.

"That's a stupid question," he whispers.

"Tell me anyway."

"Of course I thought about it. Pretty broken thing that you were."

"I'm not broken now," Sam tells him.

Gabriel's eyes narrow.

"You hated me, did you forget that?"

"I think you liked that too," Sam says roughly.

There's a glint of fire there when Gabriel looks at him again.

Then there's a hand in his hair again. But it's not testing now. It's not indulgence, it's tight fingers and a slow steady pull and Sam hisses out a breath. Before Gabriel folds into him, pressing him back into the sheets with his own weight and his own strange, desperate, furious want.

Sam shudders out messy relief when Gabriel kisses him, hands digging in wherever they find something to hang on to. He doesn't waste his breath on speaking he just opens up and takes it.

Gabriel's mouth is hot and messy and hard. Sam ends up with his fingers tangled somewhere in his hair, holding him there in some sort of mute demand that he doesn’t know how to voice. Can't voice because Gabriel currently owns his mouth.

Until he's free, breathing out an unsteady groan when Gabriel's teeth drag their way down his jaw to his throat, closing tight on the skin. Until he's swallowing something that tips just over the edge of pain.

Sam pulls at his hair, pulls until Gabriel is back against his mouth, breathing like he's human.

"You'll tangle us up together, Sam. You'll make one hell of a mess."

"Then leave," Sam says flatly. But his hand goes tight in Gabriel's hair, like he'll have to fight him to do it.

Gabriel makes a noise, hard and almost amused.

"It's already too late for that," he manages, and it comes out sounding like accusation, or blame. But Sam's used to that too. "You should never have said yes, always saying yes to things you don't understand."

"I kind of have a history of making bad decisions," Sam admits.

Gabriel smiles against his mouth like he doesn't take offence. More like he approves, or understands.

"If you were easy, Sam Winchester, I would never have brought you back."


End file.
